No Good Sense, but maybe Hog Sense will do :)

Well, I have come to the conclusion that we either have hog fever or we don't have the good sense that God gave a billy goat. Yesterday, which was opening day of youth season for deer, we decided we'd take the dogs out on a wild hair that a select few hogs would be just as crazy as we were and be stirring in the cold. At 6am it was a toasty 21 degrees and there we were loading dogs.

My first sign should have been the fact that I had on 2 shirts, 2 jackets, 2 pants, a cap, insulated socks, and my boots and was still cold. The second sign should have been that we didn't have a windshield on the ranger. Sign number 3 was that the road had been worked and it hasn't rained here in a month... can you say dust storm?
But all of that aside, once we made it through all the dust and finally got to turn some dogs loose it was worth it. There were a ton of people that went. First of, Taterbug and Tanner and maybe Bo (I cant rightly remember) turned their dogs out. It wasn't long before we got a few sound off barks, but nothing major. About 30 minutes later, I happened to be looking up the hill and about 13 pigs and shoats crossed the road. I hollered at dad and asked him if we could turn our dogs out now and he said yes. Then, the race was on.

Tracker was showing them a good 6-700 yards away in the fork of a creek. So here me and dad go to try and find the dogs. By ourselves, mind you. When the tracker finally got back in range it was showing all of our dogs bayed. Pulled up within 90 yards and heard the squeal. I went out first. Once I got out there I hollered back at dad and told him they had another one caught about 10 yards farther from me. We both caught a hog each... but didn't have any string... not long after dad drug his catch over to mine we heard the cavalry coming. They brought us some string and we tied those two up.
A little ways up the road, the dogs struck again. This time they were bayed across the creek, which happened to be dry. Tied that one and brought it back. However, the group left us and it just happened that Bo's four-wheeler broke down and it them a pretty good while to get it back out to the road and he limped it back to the main road and hitched a ride on back to the group with Woodie and Melissa. Once we made it back to the group, it wasn't long before Tanner and Bug's dogs bayed again. This time they had a decent hog and killed a little piglet off to the side. So, then we turned our dogs out and they and dad went on a little "walk-about". Well, the group left going to a few dogs that were bayed. We didn't know where dad was so we stayed and waited and waited and waited. Still no dad. So I told Woodie that the only thing I can think to do was to go back to the group and hope we find him on the way. When we caught back up they had a big black sow stabbed in the road, but no dad. Loaded that sow up and Woodie said, "I'm gonna go back and see if I cant find Jerry"... He did finally.

Mine and Dad's matching hogs

The piglet and bigger hog

 

I guess I don't have a picture yet of the sow that they stabbed... Sorry about that.

I don't know if it was the cold or what, but after that people were ready to head back to the trucks, so we did. After we left Travis called and said that they had bayed, stabbed, and left another pig... and Tanner and Bo ended up with this nice sow too...

So all in all it was a good November hunt... a little chilly, but worth it!

And then there was 3...

Well, we had gotten down to one horse.. Legs.... and now we are back up to three. Mom and I both got mares. Mom got a quarter horse mare in August that she calls SweetHeart and I got a black gaited mare couple of weeks ago that I formally name Ebony's Silhouette. (I went a little crazy taking pics)

 Ebony's Silhouette

Size different much??

She LOVES the water

Leg's said he had an itch lol

SweetHeart

She had an itch too

Playing in the water with Legs

He's so dramatic

MIA for a while, but back in the swing of things!

I realize that it has been a pretty good while since my last update. I won't try to give everyone the entire update, I'll just hit a few highlights.

When we first started hunting our new place, they were over come with hogs. It was unlike anything we had ever seen before. Anyway, in 9 weekends only hunting an average of 5 hours on both Saturday and Sunday we managed to catch 130 hogs. 30 hogs over the original challenge that they gave us. With that number we closed out hog season with 242 catches with the year of 2014.

Like I said, I'm not going to try to recall every weekend, but one weekend in particular was worth re-telling. We got to our normal meeting spot and got everyone rounded up by 6am. We were hunting with some new now friends of ours for the first time. Southern Style Pro Staffers Wayne and Veronica and another couple and their small children. We voluntarily let them turn their dogs out first out of respect. They run around but never struck on anything. We moved on down the road. Eventually, Henry and I convinced Dad to put just two of our dogs on the ground; Tanner and Whitey. It couldn't have been more than 5 minutes since they hit the ground and they bayed. A little spotted pig about 45 pounds. Tied him and brought him out. Dad decided that that little pig wasn't alone. He walked Tanner and Whitey out the side end of an oat patch not far from our original bay. 756 yards later the tracker was showing bayed. And then, it happened... The call for a bulldog rang out. Me and Charlie struck out. Running that distance anyway would have been hard, but running it with Charlie was even worse. 120 yards from the bay I had to turn him loose. And then the chase was on! About 10 minutes after I turned him loose it was complete silence. No dogs barked and no hog squealed. I didn't know what to do... the only thing I could do was keep heading into the bay. I feel as though I've mislead y'all about the people. All 4 men had been in the woods a good 30-45 minutes ahead of us women. There was 4 of us women, one of which had never hunted before. Well, we finally made it in and finally heard some racket. Problem? Bout 10 yards from us was "big nasty" (the name that one of the women gave this hog) and in between us was a slew. One bulldog who was already beginning to give out and 4 women with no men in sight. Well, we lit out across the slew, calling for help, strategizing if we had to this ourselves. Finally, just as Charlie was giving completely out, Henry showed up! I was so happy to see him I didn't know what to do. Anyway, they struggled a while after I pulled Charlie off to get the hog down. They ended up stabbing him and we brought him out. We didn't catch anything else that day...

This is Rachel, the woman that had never been before. Pretty good first time if you ask us! Lol

Me and Aubry! My "prodigee"

That was a Saturday... The following Sunday was just as active. We bayed a good sized hog on the very edge of the Tombigbee River. Had to use both bulldogs, but not much of a run...

The Catch!

Me and Dad

Us crazy girls!! :)

After that catch we went on deeper into the area and met up with one of the president of the club that we were hunting on. He told us to go down a road that we have forever named "The Road to the Left". We turned out and immediately jumped a family of shoats. Doubled bayed 2 of them. After tying those two up we went a little piece and turned out again. Then it happened... Double bay again on two decent sized hogs. One sow and one boar. Henry and Dale struck out on the sow and we went on to the boar only to realize later that we had left Henry and Dale without any string to tie their hog up with. Dale left Henry holding the sow, came and found us, got some string, and went back to Henry.

I know that this post is getting long, but I'm going to tell one more story and call it quits.

Our last weekend, we had hunted all morning without any luck... we were headed out, feeling kind of defeated... but the dogs refused to leave empty handed. We got up into a semi-thick briar area and the dogs jumped a couple pigs. Everybody but me and Melissa left and went to that bay. We were standing there and heard Chiwa barking... on the opposite side of the road. Got to thinking and realized that him and Black Betty were out there together and must have a hog of their own. Here me and Melissa went to get our own hog. We got all the way out there just to realize they were in the middle of a decent sized slew. I tried to cross first, sunk up to my thighs and turned around. It just so happened that a tree had blown down across the slew, so I decided to walk the log out to the hog. On my way across, I took the bark off of the tree with my boots. Know what lives under the bark of a dead tree? FIRE ANTS!! By this time Henry and Dale had arrived and the hog was dead. Hard headed Henry decided he would just go across the slew. It didn't work for him either. Dale walked the log and jumped down to the hog... Henry CRAWLED the log, which stirred up the ants. Dale handed the hog up to me and I handed it up to Henry. He then said he was going to throw it to Melissa... He threw it alright, but it didn't go very far. She managed to get it out though. Then it was time for us to come back to land. Since Henry already stirred up the ants they were out to get us with a vengeance, and boy did they!! We brought out both hogs though and were proud of them...